Cards speak ("for themselves") is used in two poker contexts:
First, it is used to describe a high-low split game without a declaration. That is, in a cards speak game, players all reveal their hands at the showdown, and whoever has the highest hand wins the high half of the pot and whoever has the lowest hand wins the low half.
The other context is as a house rule in casino cardrooms. "Cards speak" means that any verbal declaration as to the content of a player’s hand is not binding. If Mary says she has no pair, but in fact she has a flush, her cards speak and her hand is viewed for its genuine value, that of a flush. Likewise if John says he has a flush, but in fact he does not, his hand is judged on its actual merits, not his verbal declaration. At the discretion of management, any player miscalling his hand may have that hand fouled, but this is not required.
The "cards speak" rule does not address the awarding of a pot, player responsibilities, or the similar one player to a hand rule. It merely means that verbal statements do not make a hand value. The cards do.
Famous quotes containing the words cards and/or speak:
“A revolution is not the overturning of a cart, a reshuffling in the cards of state. It is a process, a swelling, a new growth in the race. If it is real, not simply a trauma, it is another ring in the tree of history, layer upon layer of invisible tissue composing the evidence of a circle.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“The moose is singularly grotesque and awkward to look at. Why should it stand so high at the shoulders? Why have so long a head? Why have no tail to speak of?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)